Telehealth player AMC Health is ramping up its offerings with the launch of a new mobile platform and telehealth conferencing system, aimed at allowing healthcare providers to offer services to patients in the home.

The company has also announced an extension of its cloud strategy, designed to improve the patient experience.

The mobile platform, built on the Android operating system, allows patient data to be delivered over an Android smartphone using standard wireless networks, and AMC (New York City, NY, USA) says it plans to extend the platform to work with Windows devices and iPhones.

Previously, devices monitoring the health status of the patient were connected to AMC through a modem that transmitted information via a cellular provider network, limiting them to a single location.

“Our new mobile platform is a tremendous step forward for patients, especially those leading more active lives,” said Lloyd Mangnall, the newly installed CIO at AMC Health.

“There is no interruption in the care they’re receiving because it can now follow them as they change locations.”

“We chose to build our platform on the Android OS because its openness and flexibility allows us to start bringing the benefits of a fully mobile care system to patients more quickly,” he added. “In addition, the low cost for an Android smartphone makes it more practical for clinicians to provide devices to patients who either don’t have one or don’t have good coverage in their area.”

The videoconferencing service allows clinicians to initiate patient interventions when needed, meaning nurses can see and communicate with patients whose monitoring systems have triggered alerts.

Discussing its cloud expansion, AMC says the broader strategy is to use the cloud not just to monitor health but also to take an active role in changing the outcomes.

“We are one of the few technology companies that is totally focused on care and care outcomes rather than the device or the delivery mechanism,” said Mangnall. “That’s why our platform is designed to work with any device today, as well as devices that haven’t even been invented yet.”

“Getting remote patients engaged in their own health care is a worthy endeavor, but we don’t want to stop there,” he added. “We also focus on how technology improves the patient experience.”

AMC claims that its services have already reduced the rate of 30-day hospital readmissions by 19.5%.